The University of Washington Press is the nonprofit book and multimedia publishing arm of the University of Washington.

Tag Archives: Native American and Indigenous Studies Association

We are thrilled to join the University of British Columbia and its co-hosts at the 2017 annual meeting of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA) from June 22 to 24, 2017 at UBC’s Vancouver campus on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Musqueam Nation.

If you’ll be attending the meeting, please join us on Friday, June 23 at 3:45 p.m. for light refreshments and a book signing to celebrate the most recent titles in the Indigenous Confluences series edited by Coll Thrush and Charlotte Coté. Network Sovereignty author Marisa Elena Duarte and Unlikely Alliances author Zoltán Grossman will be signing their new books!

Follow NAISA 2017 on Twitter and use the hashtag #NAISA2017 to keep posted on the annual meeting on social media!

Since the 1990s, Native governments have been banishing, denying, or disenrolling citizens at an unprecedented rate. Nearly eighty nations, in at least twenty states, have terminated the rights of indigenous citizens. This first comprehensive examination of the origins of this disturbing trend looks at hundreds of tribal constitutions and interviews with disenrolled members and tribal officials to show the damage this practice is having across Indian Country and ways to address the problem.

Given the significance of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to social and political life, many U.S. tribes and Native organizations have created their own projects, from streaming radio to building networks to telecommunications advocacy. Duarte examines these ICT projects to explore the significance of information flows and information systems to Native sovereignty, and toward self-governance, self-determination, and decolonization.

Unlikely Alliances explores the evolution from conflict to cooperation through place-based case studies in the Pacific Northwest, Northern Plains, Great Basin, and Great Lakes, from the 1970s to the 2010s. They suggest how a deep love of place can overcome the most bitter divides between Native and non-Native neighbors. In these times of polarized politics and globalized economies, many of these stories offer inspiration and hope.

This collaborative ethnography explores how the Chinook Indian Nation, whose land and heritage are under assault, continues to move forward and remain culturally strong and resilient. Jon Daehnke focuses on Chinook participation in archaeological projects and sites of public history as well as the tribe’s role in the revitalization of canoe culture in the Pacific Northwest. This lived and embodied enactment of heritage, one steeped in reciprocity and protocol rather than documentation and preservation of material objects, offers a tribally relevant, forward-looking, and decolonized approach for the cultural resilience and survival of the Chinook Indian Nation, even in the face of federal nonrecognition.

Other Native American and Indigenous Studies titles:

This updated edition of Native Seattle brings the indigenous story to the present day and puts the movement of recognizing Seattle’s Native past into a broader context. Native Seattle focuses on the experiences of local indigenous communities on whose land Seattle grew, accounts of Native migrants to the city and the development of a multi-tribal urban community, as well as the role Native Americans have played in the narrative of Seattle.

The Gift of Knowledge / Ttnuwit Atawish Nch’inch’imamí is a treasure trove of material for those interested in Native American culture.Linguist and educator Beavert narrates highlights from her own life and presents cultural teachings, oral history, and stories (many in bilingual Ishishkíin-English format) about family life, religion, ceremonies, food gathering, and other aspects of traditional culture.

Through large-scale installation, sculpture, photography, printmaking, and painting, Sonny Assu merges the aesthetics of Indigenous iconography with a pop-art sensibility. This stunning retrospective spans over a decade of Assu’s career, highlighting more than 120 full-color works, including several never-before-exhibited pieces.

This book provides an accessible introduction to American Indian businesses, business practices, and business education. Chapters cover the history of American Indian business from early trading posts to today’s casino boom; economic sustainability, self-determination, and sovereignty; organization and management; marketing; leadership; human resource management; tribal finance; business strategy and positioning; American Indian business law; tribal gaming operations; the importance of economic development and the challenges of economic leakage; entrepreneurship; technology and data management; business ethics; service management; taxation; accounting; and health-care management.

Later this week, we head to the 2016 annual meeting of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA) at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi. The meeting runs from Wednesday, May 18, to Saturday, May 21, and we can’t wait to take part in this new round of scholarly conversations and to debut new offerings in Indigenous studies with scholars, activists, artists, and all attendees!

University of Washington Press director Nicole Mitchell and exhibits, advertising, and direct mail manager Katherine Tacke will represent the press in the exhibit hall, so come say hello at booth 201! Use the hashtag #NAISA2016 to follow along with the meeting on social media, and use promo code WST1614 for 30% off books and free shipping.

If you’ll be attending the meeting in Honolulu, we hope you will stop by to check out our new and forthcoming titles, including new books in the Indigenous Confluences series, as well as to learn more about the new collaborative Mellon-funded Indigenous studies digital publishing platform initiative spearheaded by UBC Press (flyer below).

“This excellent book helps to fill a huge gap in the Native studies literature about mixed-identity gay men and their struggles with multiple oppressions.”—Renya Ramirez, author of Native Hubs: Culture, Community, and Belonging in Silicon Valley and Beyond

“Indian Blood makes a significant contribution to the field as the first major work on Native Americans, HIV/AIDS, mixed-race identity, gender and sexuality, and the urban environment. The scholarship is superior.”—Irene Vernon, author of Killing Us Quietly: Native Americans and HIV/AIDSContinue reading →

Later this month we’re heading to Santa Fe, New Mexico for the annual meeting of the Native American Art Studies Association (NAASA) from September 30-October 3. If you are attending the conference, come by our booth in the exhibit hall to browse our new titles and to meet Senior Acquisitions Editor Regan Huff.

Take a look at our new Native American studies and Art and Art History subject brochures. Even if you can’t attend the meeting, you can take advantage of our 30% conference discount on all Native Studies titles! Just order online or call 1-800-537-5487 and use promo code WST1601.

Having survived much of the past two centuries without rights to their homeland or any self-governing abilities, the Chemehuevi were a mostly “forgotten” people until the creation of the Twenty-Nine Palms Reservation in 1974. Since then, they have formed a tribal government that addresses many of the same challenges faced by other tribes, including preserving cultural identity and managing a thriving gaming industry. The Chemehuevi believe that their history and their ancestors are always present, and Clifford Trafzer honors that belief through his emphasis on individual and family stories. In doing so, he not only sheds light on an overlooked tribe but also presents an important new model for tribal history scholarship. Chemehuevi voices, both past and present, are used to narrate the story of the tribe’s tireless efforts to gain recognition and autonomy. The end result is a song of resilience.

“Driven by oral history interviews and in-depth research, Clifford E. Trafzer, a senior Indigenous scholar is at his best in masterly historicizing the Chemehuevi Way, connecting people and the past in rhythm with nature. This holistic approach is a luminous model for understanding the longue duree of native peoples.” – Donald L. Fixico, (Sac and Fox, Shawnee, Muscogee Creek and Seminole) Distinguished Foundation Professor of History, Arizona State University

For the vast majority of Native American students in federal Indian boarding schools at the turn of the twentieth century, the experience was nothing short of tragic. Dislocated from family and community, they were forced into an educational system that sought to erase their Indian identity as a means of acculturating them to white society. However, as historian John Gram reveals, some Indian communities on the edge of the American frontier had a much different experience — even influencing the type of education their children received.

Shining a spotlight on Pueblo Indians’ interactions with school officials at the Albuquerque and Santa Fe Indian Schools, Gram examines two rare cases of off-reservation schools that were situated near the communities whose children they sought to assimilate. Far from the federal government’s reach and in competition with nearby Catholic schools for students, Indian boarding school officials were in no position to make demands and instead were forced to pick their cultural battles with nearby Pueblo parents, who visited the schools regularly. As a result, Pueblo Indians were able to exercise their agency, influencing everything from classroom curriculum to school functions. They often mitigated the schools’ assimilation efforts and assured the various pueblos’ cultural, social, and economic survival.

“Gram offers a highly engaging account of Pueblo Indian students and their experiences at the Albuquerque and Santa Fe Indian schools. His book reveals an intense power dynamic between parents, school officials, the Catholic church, and the students themselves. No other single scholarly work interrogates the ways Pueblo students and their tribal communities experienced these institutions.” — Matthew Sakiestewa Gilbert, author of Education beyond the Mesas: Hopi Students at Sherman Institute, 1902–1929

The Press is also proud to announce the launch of our Decolonizing Feminisms: Antiracist and Transnational Praxis series, edited by Piya Chatterjee. The series explores the integral connections between theory, activism, policy making, and other forms of social action. It brings together new work by U.S. women of color, Indigenous, and transnational feminists to envision critical and imaginative frameworks for political resistance and progressive social change. Among the first books in the series is:

In recent years, global attention has focused on how women in communities of Muslims are revitalizing Islam by linking interpretation of religious ideas to the protection of rights and freedoms. Humanizing the Sacred demonstrates how Sunni women activists in Malaysia are fracturing institutionalized Islamic authority by generating new understandings of rights and redefining the moral obligations of their community. Based on ethnographic research of Sisters in Islam (SIS), a nongovernmental organization of professional women promoting justice and equality, Basarudin examines SIS members’ involvement in the production and transmission of Islamic knowledge to reformulate legal codes and reconceptualize gender discourses.

By weaving together women’s lived realities, feminist interpretations of Islamic texts, and Malaysian cultural politics, this book illuminates how a localized struggle of claiming rights takes shape within a transnational landscape. It provides a vital understanding of how women “live” Islam through the integration of piety and reason and the implications of women’s political activism for the transformation of Islamic tradition itself.

Several members of the University of Washington Press staff will attend the annual meeting of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA) in Austin, Texas later this week. If you’re attending the conference, come by booth 214 in the exhibit hall to browse our new titles and to meet Senior Acquisitions Editor Ranjit Arab, our new Editor in Chief Larin McLaughlin, and Publicity Manager Natasha Varner.

Take a look at this preview of some of the books we’ll be displaying at the conference or view our new Native American studies subject brochure. Even if you can’t attend the meeting, you can take advantage of our 30% conference discount on all Native Studies titles! Just order online or call 1-800-537-5487 and use code WST1410 (offer expires June 30).

Be sure to catch the screening of the fully restored Edward Curtis film, In the Land of the Head Hunters (1914) on Friday morning at 10 a.m. in Salon K on the 6th floor of the Hilton Austin. The film, made in collaboration with the Kwakwaka’wakw people of British Columbia, was the first ever to feature an all Indigenous cast. Read more about the film and the accompanying book project below. Continue reading →